After the fireworks

I don't see any ghosts left --


only dirty snow.


Na al het vuurwerkNach das Feuerwerk
zie ik nergens nog geesten --sehe ich nirgends Geister --
alleen vieze sneeuw.nur schmutzigen Schnee.

Poem H0047
Amsterdam, 2011-11-29

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: New Year^ 
 

The frogs are croaking,

safe under a cloud of blood-


thirsty mosquitoes.


De kikkers kwakenDie Frösche quaken
veilig onder een wolk bloed-unter einer Wolke blut-
dorstige muggen.rünstiger Mücken.

Poem H0352
Amsterdam, 2012-09-12

The forest behind the cemetery of La Ferté Saint Cyr (on May 31st, 2012)
Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Animals: frog / toad 
Keyword: France% 
 

The wind lashes rain

on the windowpane, so nice --


that I am inside.


De wind vlaagt regen-Der Wind peitscht Regen-
striemen op de ruit, heerlijk --streifen an das Fensterglas --
dat ik binnen zit.Schön, drinnen zu sein.

Poem H0389
Amsterdam, 2012-11-23

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Home: residence / work 
 

Fairytale noises

in the woods make fairytales --


quite real, I'm afraid.


SprookjesgeluidenMärchengeräusche
in het bos maken sprookjes --im Wald machen Märchen wahr --
echt waar, ben ik bang.fürchte ich wirklich.

Poem H0610
Amsterdam, 2013-10-06

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Fear: insecurity 
 

The flag has long frays,

like her hair when she left me --


Her hair in the wind.


Lange vlagrafels,Die ausgefranste
zoals haar haren bij haarFahne, wie ihre Haare --
vertrek in de wind.im Wind, als sie ging.

Poem H1014
Amsterdam, 2014-07-15

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Missing: love 
 

Zywa The sails

My darling is gone
the earth pushes tidal
tears up through the sand

sails in the east
round me, signs
upon them, I walk

for miles
to spartina and seepweed
and fro to the beacon

build a stone tower there
break stone for stone
read word for word, listen

and build writing and
singing sentence for sentence
our love again

Poem 848
Amsterdam, 2016-10-28

Ameland
Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Missing: absence 
Keyword: Friesland% 
 

Zywa The slow time

In bed, in the dark
below the dyke I hear
the hum of the river

vessels curve heavily
loaded in the bend
of the slow time

where we never venture, knowing
what happened to that boy
whom nobody knows anymore

where we swim in summer
a few strokes to
and fro in the bay

build lookouts
and are bored
with the creep of

the little waves
the long barges
the slow time

peering
at new cars or other
cargo on deck

Poem 826
Amsterdam, 2016-11-09

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Time 
Keyword: Summer^ 
 

Zywa In humbuzz

We came out of the hotel's
exercise hall and you pointed
among the humbuzzing people

at me
Your finger attacked me
in my heart

In our room your hand slipped
Quickly I threw a heap
absorbing salt on the carpet

After you left, I washed
away the red stain
All uncertainty

Dividing us
The other side is far
The fastest I swim

crawling
over the sunken ships
It takes too long

to build a bridge
over Ridge and Pebbles
hoping for a road

Poem 851
Amsterdam, 2016-11-29

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Love: change / end 
 

Zywa Such a house am I

Between the trees
six colourful panels
Six colourful panels
between green trees
And four pillars on the outside

Panels as doors
to another world
In their flat plane
magical screens that
you can step into

Holes in a clearing
between the trees
Look-ins entrances
for anyone who approaches
and can enter

the colour rooms, the invisible
country house in the clearing
where mirror trees live
outside mirrored inside and inside
mirrored outside, such a house

am I

Poem 880
Amsterdam, 2016-12-09

The cabin, burst open to 4 rooms (Daniel Buren) (2005)
Artwork "La cabane éclatée aux 4 salles" in the park of Villa Celle, near Pistoia
Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Identity: mirror 
Tribute to: Buren, Daniel 
 

Zywa Of flesh and blood

Jokes I make, my choice of words
and my clothes for the people
I know (who I am)
do have some importance
although every time again
I know afterwards

that it does not last
does not have the consistence
of my face, and
that only a vague image of it
remains with the people
I know (who I am)

that it only means something
to who knows what people
I don't know (who I am not
on their screen, in their ears
or on the paper in their hands
of flesh and blood)

Poem 886
Amsterdam, 2016-12-11

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Identity: image 
 

Zywa Different

These circumstances, difficulties
and your behaviour
lately

I don't know myself that way
although I see a bit more
who I am, and you, we

and how things are going
Unsolicited
I just have to

make the best
of it again
What should be different?

Two, three things
now you that you ask
If it's possible

And then
make the best of it
together

Poem 923
Amsterdam, 2016-12-28

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Love: effort / pain 
Dedicated to: Maria Godschalk 
 

Zywa Appearances

Because I don't have time
I just like to waste the day
unwashed in a bathrobe

Being myself, at home
in my city bunker -
in front of the window
that mirrors on the outside

If you fly past it
you will see sparrows
being chased off the seed
by ducks who then flee

from the gull army
which has hardened its beaks
four times in the gastric acid
of the Duck family

I am safely offside
and what I don't like
I erase from the screen

Poem 969
Amsterdam, 2017-01-22

Hard swords were made from iron filings, which had been mixed into the feed of ostriches, ducks, or chickens to harden in their stomach acid, and were subsequently recovered from the manure
Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Life: effort 
Keyword: Distance / Detachment 
 

Zywa Foghorn

How wonderful it is
to be foam
all of us together, big wads

of hungry human foam, a fog
of life, and I a flake
in colours of my own, I

need to lament for a moment
in my most pathetic voice
and blow that I exist, I

already dissolve, way too soon
not like when
I was just born and grew

of my own waste
no, it is shrinking
I'm eating myself

The doctors have explained it
They hope to learn from me
and to know more later

Poem 991
Amsterdam, 2017-02-05

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Old age: ailments 
 

Zywa Without filters: Blind

Signals, fragments and
pieces of it of which
I am aware, the world
arranged through my eye filters

to a living area, I do
need nothing more
to exist, and to love
you as my dearest

Because if I had more receptors
you would occupy me even more
paralyze and devour me
Fortunately everything is measured

not too much or too little
with adapted diseases
to every deviation, if
my love does not keep its bounds

blindly thinking to see
who you are, my
whatever, dreamt
to my supposed needs

Poem 1375
Amsterdam, 2017-05-24

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Balance: 
Tribute to: Aristoteles 
 

Zywa Panic

At night my head is free
of consciousness: no rules
but a fair

of memories in which I only
know the way
without thinking

and screeching frustrations
which from the roller coaster
of my dreams sweep back

into their old tracks and
cry out drop by drop in the sweat
of my delirious desperation

with a grimace on my face
and a word I don't understand
Everyone flees

But you can't help that, says the doctor
Before you went to sleep
your house was already on fire

Poem 1591
Amsterdam, 2017-10-29

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Fear: bad dream 
Keyword: Panic 
 

They look at me, what

did I say?, I thought I heard --


someone else speaking.


Ze kijken mij aan,Sie sehen mich an,
wat heb ik gezegd?, ik dacht --was sagte ich?, dachte mir --
dat een ander sprak.ein anderer sprach.

Poem S0662
Trein Tilburg-Amsterdam, 2018-01-17

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Attention: focus 
 

Zywa Reasons enough

Children must learn to lie
and hopefully not do it

Lies make you unhappy
suspicious and untouchable
shrouded in caution
and accomplices

when it grows also
in officers of the law
mediators and fortune tellers
with tailor-made standards

who talk everything all-right
not stupid and not wise
enough to be sincere
and not brave enough

to give up the stress
and the ease of joining -
for one and the other, there are
unfortunately reasons enough

Poem 1756
Amsterdam, 2018-05-08

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Ethics: lie 
 

Zywa The wonderful feeling

The fog must have cleared
so slowly, that when
I saw the landscape
when I realised it

was there, I already must
have seen it unconsciously
just like when

I was bored, watching
the passing people
and thinking they also saw me
in passing, a girl

with dangling legs
just a girl
they do not know

and that I was her
This was suddenly clear
an awareness, loomed up
out of the mist of being a child

I too saw myself
sitting there in the wonderful
feeling that I was myself

Poem 2070
Amsterdam, 2019-02-17

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Identity: be seen 
 

Zywa Escape-room

The king has the key
to the locks on the outside
and that is precisely the problem

for that king is me
locked up in this pyramid
It's a koan

and it's not funny
Desperately I shout answers
in the dark, groping

I stumble on and
at last the door opens
to another dark room

so Vantablack that depth disappears
I am blind, too tired to cry
I sit down, lie down

in a fantasised sarcophagus -
buried in myself, sinking
out of my consciousness

Poem 2187
Amsterdam, 2019-03-30

Koan ("public matter") = a riddle that gives insight into life
Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Awareness: senses 
 

Having read your books,

I really know you, for me --


you're nothing but words.


Uit al jouw boekenAus deinen Büchern
ken ik je, voor mij ben jij --kenne ich dich, du bist nur --
enkel nog woorden.noch Worte für mich.

Poem S0860
Amsterdam, 2019-04-04

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Identity: deeds 
 

Watching videos

I see shadows of people --


Is it Plato's cave?


Kijkend naar filmpjesIch schau Videos
zie ik schimmen van mensen --mit Schatten von Menschen an --
Is dat Plato's grot?Das Höhlengleichnis?

Poem S0922
Amsterdam, 2019-07-31

YouTube
Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Together: connected 
 

Zywa It's just paint

When I paint my face
I don't become a clown or a Hindu god
but I get frightened of myself

I run outside
people move away, they let me
feel that I'm dangerous

it vibrates in my blood
to the rhythm of the hammers
of the demolition workers behind the fence

In the middle of the city, I am alone
with clenched fists and fire-
breathing curses

no one takes me as I
am, only policemen stop
and address me, Yes, right, I'm okay

it's just paint, I'm almost home
but maybe you happen to know
who I might vote for?

Poem 2419
Amsterdam, 2019-09-21

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Identity:  
 

The way you smell now

I have never thought of you --


Do I know myself?


Zoals jij nu ruikt,Wie du jetzt duftest,
dacht ik nog nooit over jou --hab ich nie an dich gedacht --
Ken ik mijzelf wel?Kenne ich mich selbst?

Poem H2585
Schiphol, 2019-10-15

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Identity: body 
 

Butt how is it dung:

the hole fart in smooth poogress --


or with big assents?


Hoe bil je spleten:Wie kacken wir das:
in poepele poortpang --mit ganz offenen Koten --
of met kakcenten?oder Backzenten?

Poem H2678
Amsterdam, 2020-03-19

Lost in silence (Esther Apituley) (2020)
Performance "Lost in silence"
Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Language 
Tribute to: Apituley, Esther 
 

Capitalism is

the art of tempting people --


to contract more debts.


Kapitalisme:Kapitalismus
de kunst jou te verleiden --ist die Kunst des Anreizes --
schulden aan te gaan.Schulden zu machen.

Poem S1034
Amsterdam, 2020-06-16

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Greed 
 

Being civilized,

that is, friendly and polite --


no little white lies.


Ik wil beschaafd zijn,Zivilisiert sein,
dus vriendelijk en beleefd --das heißt, freundlich und höflich --
zonder te liegen.ohne Notlügen.

Poem H2763
Amsterdam, 2020-08-13

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Ethics: lie 
 

It is uncertain

where you are, you just wander --


until this is clear.


Het is ongewisEs ist unbestimmt
waar je bent, je dwaalt maar rond --wo man ist, jeder wandert --
tot je dat beseft.bis ihm das klar ist.

Poem H2865
Amsterdam, 2020-12-21

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Stray 
 

Older: I know more,

and I know I like it less --


than fantasising.


Ouder: ik weet meer,Älter: ich weiß mehr,
en het bevalt me minder --und ich mag es weniger --
dan fantaseren.als Fantasien.

Poem S1360
Amsterdam, 2022-03-19

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Wisdom / Stupidity 
 

People in the train,

sleeping, so much travel time --


makes the day too long.


Slapende mensenSchlafende Menschen
in de trein, zoveel reistijd --im Zug, so viel Reisezeit --
maakt de dag te lang.macht den Tag zu lang.

Poem S1726
Amsterdam, 2023-04-07

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (Haruki Murakami) (2006)
Collection of short stories (2006, Haruki Murakami
Animated film (2022, Pierre Földes)

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Body: and mind 
Keyword: Sleep 
Tribute to: Murakami, Haruki 
Tribute to: Foldes, Pierre 
 

Let me think, am I

lived, like an empty inside --


heartless and soulless?


Word ik soms geleefd,Werde ich gelebt,
als een lege binnenkant --wie ein leeres Inneres --
harteloos, zielloos?herzlos, seelenlos?

Poem S1727
Amsterdam, 2023-04-07

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (Haruki Murakami) (2006)
Collection of short stories (2006, Haruki Murakami
Animated film (2022, Pierre Földes)

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Passion 
Keyword: Soul 
Tribute to: Murakami, Haruki 
Tribute to: Foldes, Pierre 
 

The values of lives

are subjective, are values --


in your fantasy.


Wat levens waard zijn,Was Leben wert sind,
is subjectief, zijn waarden --ist subjektiv, sind Werte --
in je fantasie.deiner Fantasie.

Poem H3787
Amsterdam, 2023-04-07

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (Haruki Murakami) (2006)
Collection of short stories (2006, Haruki Murakami
Animated film (2022, Pierre Földes)

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Identity: image 
Keyword: Identity: self-image 
Tribute to: Murakami, Haruki 
Tribute to: Foldes, Pierre 
 

An identity

is just a collection of --


misunderstandings.


Een identiteitDie Identität
is maar een verzameling --ist nur eine Sammlung von --
van misverstanden.Missverständnissen.

Poem S1735
Amsterdam, 2023-04-13

Exhibition "100 Missverständnisse über und unter Juden" ("100 Misunderstandings about and among Jews" in the Jewish Museum Vienna)
Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Identity: image 
 

The searching people:

while dreaming, they easily --


can lose their wisdom.


Zoekende mensen:Suchende Menschen:
al dromend verliezen ze --beim Träumen verlieren sie --
al gauw hun wijsheid.leicht ihre Weisheit.

Poem S1943
Amsterdam, 2023-10-04

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Reason: ignore 
Keyword: Doubt 
 

Over the water

my name sounds strange, sounds loaded --


with something unknown.


Over het waterÜber den Wasser
klinkt mijn naam vreemd, geladen --klingt mein Name geladen --
met iets onbekends.mit etwas Fremdem.

Poem H4345
Amsterdam, 2023-12-06

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Identity: image 
 

Lost music, lost notes,

or just lost thoughts, waifs and strays --


Elusive moments.


Verdwaalde noten,Verirrte Noten,
of verdwaalde gedachten --oder verirrtes Denken --
Ongrijpbare tijd.Ungreifbare Zeit.

Poem S2046
Amsterdam, 2023-12-11

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Awareness: volatile / fragments 
Keyword: Time: passing 
 

Every now and then

a fragment, I sense what's left --


of the past, in me.


Af en toe een flard,Manchmal ein Fragment,
ik tast af wat over is --ich taste was von früher --
van vroeger, in mij.übrig ist, in mir.

Poem H4382
Amsterdam, 2023-12-20

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Memory: of one's life 
Keyword: Identity: change 
 

Zywa Hayheat

Anyone who dislikes to be mature
and all of us feel this

resistance in the world
of discord and envy
in which we have built high

towers for judges and lawyers
who want to win for you

magnify your disadvantages
if you know what I mean
magnify your disadvantages

and with satisfaction demand new rules
to stab in the haystack on all sides

till everything gets stuck
and citizens are suffocating here and there
after which the next step in the treadmill

Anyone who dislikes to be mature

joins the demands, because one cannot talk
with someone who is different
Envy clogs the ears

Poem 1245
Amsterdam, 2017-03-25

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Ethics: laws 
Keyword: Disfavour / Jealousy / Envy 
 

Puzzling my head off,

there's something I cannot find --


what is it again?


Ik pieker me suf,Ich zerbreche mich
ik kan iets echt niet vinden --den Kopf, um es zu finden --
wat is het ook weer?Was ist es nochmal?

Poem S0838
Amsterdam, 2019-01-26

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Attention: focus 
 

Hay fever tickles

inside my nose: Ahchooray!


It is spring again!


Bloesem kriebelt hooiHeuschnupfen kitzelt
koorts in mijn neus: Hatsjhoera!in die Nase: Hatschurra!
Het is weer lente!in die Nase: Hatschurra!

Poem S1406
Amsterdam, 2022-05-09

Collection: Local traffic 
Keyword: Nature: flowers 
Keyword: Spring^ 
 

Zywa
     Collection:   Local traffic
GroupGermanDutch5-7-5
PencilPumiceRainLoves
CompressedBirdsIflessPhoto